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Topic: Peso(s) or Piso? (Read 5009 times)

Just from my personal experience as I relearned to speak and write the basic Tagalog language over again, it all depends really how it sounds in a sentence to a Filipino! If a foreigner isn't fluent in the Tagalog language, he/she may not know the difference, because both words, piso or peso(s) can also be used depending on the English or Tagalog version of saying or writing it down in print correctly!

Here are just a few examples in how both words, piso (pisos for plural, can not be used) or peso (pesos, for plural can be used) and depending on the sentence structure of being asked and answered appropriately.

You want to buy something and the salesperson ask you how much you want to pay?

A descriptive sentence: T: Ang palit ng piso or peso(s) ay pinamakataas ngayon! (both can be used and plural for pesos)E: The peso exchange rate is at an all time high today! (piso or plural for peso can not be used here)

There are other phases in which Peso(s) and Piso can be used appropriately as to making it sound right to the average Filipino, but not necessarily to a foreigner not familiar with the Tagalog dialect phonetically speaking. Most foreigners would just shrug it off and pay no mind to it whether to use Piso or Peso! It would just make a few local's eyebrows to rise inquisitively silent as to not offend the foreigner since it's just a minor historical/cultural/language technicality!

Appropriate in this context: The One Peso coin (Piso) The "One Piso" coin doesn't sound right in English IMO, but some, even Filipino professors and foreigners a like still persist in doing so! As I said, it's no big deal, but there's still a difference from my own personal observation and opinion! Yeah, and some would say too, "who gives a rat's _ss" huh!

« Last Edit: June 07, 2013, 09:29:23 AM by Art, re(tired) Fil/Am »

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"Life is what we all make it to be"! "It's always a matter of money"!"Do on to others as they would do on to You, but do it first"! "Different strokes for different folks"!"Que Sera Sera"!

Of course the Philippines' official spelling is "Piso". But how is it pronounced?

Filipino/Tagalog pronunciation, in general, follows the Spanish style, where an "i" within a word is pronounced as "ee". An "e" being is pronounced as "aye".

Where some confusion exists, IMHO, is how a native Filipino speaker pronounces the word, as opposed to how an alien, brought up and educated in a native English speaking culture, would.

In the main, Filipinos will pronounce English words using Filipino grammatical usage, while aliens will use the form they have been educated with. Whether English-English, American-English, India- English, whatever English ad nauseam. LOL!

For example, on an English segment on local TV news recently, the Apollo space programme was being discussed. The 3 Filipino commentators all pronounced the word as "Ap-o-lo" almost 3 words, while the American guest pronounced it "Ah-pollo" one word. Did this matter? Probably not, as they could understand each other and, more importantly, so could I as an alien viewer.

There are, of course, many exceptions to the fore-going, as those who have been in contact with Filipino call centres can testify. In general though, many, many people, British, American, Filipino, will use their own educational experience as a termplate for how they pronounce a word, whether that is correct in the foreign language they are trying to master. Or not LOL!